A new beginning
October 2nd, 2008 // 1:51 pm @ Amar
It’s been a while since I posted. I have been involved in bringing my dream to reality. For a quick update, I have left my job to start my own company Toolagen Limited. Currently keeping very busy in giving shape to this organisation while working on several consulting projects on SharePoint / MOSS. Working for myself will enable me to work on even more engaging and complex SharePoint / MOSS projects while creating a service delivery team to develop and deploy complex MOSS solutions.
We are also working on some SharePoint tools which will soon be released to everyone. Hopefully we will be making it to Beta before Christmas.
Category : General &SharePoint
Virtualization on Windows Server 2008
July 31st, 2008 // 1:20 pm @ Amar
One of the features of Windows 2008 I really wanted to try was HyperV. It’s good, faster than Virtual Server, supports HyperVisor etc. etc. However, I have removed the Hyper V Role from my system. The reason being loss of sleep. I just can’t live with it. I know the Hyper V team has given some explaination about the technical problems etc. but to me those are more like excuses. Why will a laptop with Hyper V not go in sleep mode when there are no VM’s running? I can understand that they have kept the priorities of enterprise servers while designing this product, but one of the biggest users of Virtualization are developers, and they don’t have servers which are on 24×7. I would like my laptop to sleep, save power when I put the lid down and myself go to sleep at night. Don’t have the patience to wait for boot up and shutdown times everytime I leave my laptop. At least enable sleep on lid down, so that my hard disks don’t keep spinning and heating up all thru the night.
I tried VMWare Server which was the free version out recently. However, found it a bit of mess with no help file for a first time VMWare user and I was really in no mood to dig up documents to find out how to connect to the VM. I may be tired and sleepy but definitely not very impressed by VMWare Server considering the amount of stuff I have heard about it.
Well, to cut the long story short, I have decided to stick to Virtual PC for a little while, and alternatively go navite. I do have a blazing fast laptop, and a blazing fast server OS, so will try and work without VM’s. Will develop like old school before VM’s came into picture. Will load WSS on my Windows 2008 install and start developing. For MOSS, I will bear the pain of VPC for now till I make up my mind for a nice virtualization software to use.
Category : Windows Server 2008
Loving Windows 2008
July 31st, 2008 // 1:05 pm @ Amar
I recently installed Windows Server 2008 64 bit edition to my laptop. I agree getting all drivers were a little bit of effort, and I still have a driver missing for an unknown device which keeps prompting me, but I will say the effort and pain was well worth it. The installation process was really smooth. I did format my hard drive and make a clean install. It was nice to finally make a move to 64 bit and what better than Server 2008. It’s a fantastic OS. Possibly one of the best Microsoft has produced till date.
I configured my system to use it as a workstation using many of the tutorials and guides available on the net. I may write up everything in one concise post if people want, but the information is pretty widely available. I can say one thing. It’s fast. Oh did I mention that I now have 4 GB of RAM and being 64 bit, I can finally use all of it.
It was an interesting experience hunting for 64 bit applications. True that most of the 32 bit apps work fine, but being a perfectionist that I am, I will still keep looking for pure 64 bit version of every software I use. Goal is to be fully 64 bit in the near future.
Even Lord of the Rings Online works fine after updating my graphics driver and updating Windows. Next step was to setup the ultimate development rig over this base OS install. Will describe my experience in a seperate post. However I will recommend every developer to try it over Vista. It rocks.
Category : Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 Step by Step Guide
July 7th, 2008 // 10:01 am @ Amar
I have been taking quite a bit of interest in Windows Server 2008 these days. Along with getting ready for the next server platform it also seems like the best platform to run natively on my development laptop. would make the perfect environment for MOSS development.
For those interested, Microsoft has released a bunch of Step by Step Guides which will help get up to speed with Windows Server 2008. Definitely worth a look if you ever get stuck trying to configure the server and can’t find the required options.
Category : Windows Server 2008
Open XML SDK Released
June 11th, 2008 // 1:24 pm @ Amar
The release version of the Open XML SDK is now out. The download page mentions April CTP under the Description, however, this is the June 08 version. The download details will show that it was published on 6/10/2008. So go ahead and start playing with it, if you have not done so in the past. Will see if I can write a few articles on using this soon.
Category : OpenXML
Analyse your Source Code
June 6th, 2008 // 10:51 am @ Amar
I recently gave Microsoft Source Analysis a try. It was released sometime ago, and act’s as an add-in in Visual Studio to check the source code with some coding rules. This is different from FxCop which checks assemblies. This checks your source code before it is compiled right in Visual Studio editor.
Some companies may need to change some rules to match their coding standards. For people who don’t have a particularly though out coding standard in place, and are using something from the ASP / VB / C days, it may be worth changing over the standard based on the Source Analysis rules, as it has been in use for quite a while at some parts of Microsoft, and from an overall look, it does look quite a decent one.
//———————————————————————–
// <copyright file=”Program.cs” company=”Your Company Name”>
// Copyright (c) Your Company Name. All rights reserved.
// </copyright>
// <author>Your Name</author>
//———————————————————————–
// <auto-generated />
For more details about headers, you can check out the rules documentation on the Source Analysis Blog.
Lastly, now, you are sort of morally forced to document every method. I know it’s a bit of an effort for all lazy developers like me. So GhostDoc come here to rescue us from our plight. For those of you, who don’t know about Ghost Doc, shame on you. Just kidding 
It is a cool VS Add-In by Roland Weigelt, which auto generates method descriptions by guessing it from the description. It is not perfect, but definitely a big leap from the Visual Studio way. Download it and I can assure you that you will seriously get addicted to it. Combine together Ghost Doc and Source Analysis, make coding much clearer, better documented and developer friendly.
Category : dotNet
Blogging again
June 2nd, 2008 // 1:09 pm @ Amar
Some of my old readers would have noticed that I’ve stopped blogging for quite a while now. Thing in my personal life, kept me busy and off blogging.
However, I am very much here, and dying to start blogging again. While I was in hibernation, the world has moved ahead leaps and bounds. MOSS is getting more and more popularity, and I am seeing people get excited about SharePoint more than I have ever seen before. I have been working with MOSS for a little while now, and it is HUGE. So while I begin another journey to learn, hack and understand the nitty gritty’s of MOSS, I will try my best to keep discussing my findings with you. Had been busy with an architecture project in MOSS and currently working with a MOSS OpenXML based project. Have learnt a lot of things, but MOSS does amaze me daily.
For this so called first post, I will just list out some interesting pieces from fellow bloggers which I have been reading lately.
Andrew Connell posted a nice article on getting Silverlight working in SharePoint.
Spencer Harbar has posted a nice article on Internet Sites Licensing with SharePoint.
The Microsoft SharePoint Team has a nice article discussing the architecture for Building a News Workbench.
Paul Andrew has a short and effective task list on getting started with SharePoint development. Very practical advice here.
Doug Mahugh has some fantastic resources for those interested in getting started with Open XML. One of the best compilations I have seen.
And last but not least, Todd Baginski has a nice article on programmatically customising Site Navigation in WSS and MOSS.
Category : SharePoint
Top 10 New Features of Windows Server 2008
February 7th, 2008 // 12:24 pm @ Amar
As Windows 2008 is now officially released ( and people suspect that the release of Vista SP1 is similar to the codebase of Windows Server 2008 ), it would be nice recap the top new features which are making its way to us. I found this nice article which introduces to some of the fantastic changes coming with Windows Server 2008. I am really looking forward to a GUI less set of servers running on a dual core machine and providing multiple services. Oh, and the self healing NTFS sounds cool. Check out all the other features and I am sure you would be dying to get your hands on the new system.
Now I am off to find out more about Server Core. It is a really fantastic concept if it lives up to it’s promise. It will definitely ease the burden on existing servers, boost performance, and decrease power consumption and cooling needs. One Quad – Eight core servers, lots of ram and server core to replace 2-3 existing servers, would be fantastic. From a developers point of view, if I can get AD, SQL Server, DNS and Mail working from a GUI Less Server Core VM installation, using under 512 MB of Ram, that would be just fantastic. All I need is to connect via a admin GUI to the Server Core machine and configure the services. Would be even fantastic if all servers ( SharePoint, Office Servers, Biztalk etc ), are enabled to run via a GUI less server in the future. This would make it phenomenal. It would take away the pain of developing on a laptop.
Category : Windows
Article on Microsoft’s proposed offer to Yahoo!
February 1st, 2008 // 2:18 pm @ Amar
SearchEngineLand has a nice write up about this proposed acquisition. It discusses the event in detail and portrays a nice picture of what is going on and why. Definitely worth a read.
There are also live blogged notes from the Microsoft conference call for the Yahoo! bid at 8:30.
Microsoft’s offer letter to Yahoo!
February 1st, 2008 // 2:03 pm @ Amar
Steve Ballmer’s letter to the board of Yahoo! is available for us to read at the Microsoft Presspass site. Definitely worth a read. I skipped the financial figures, and tried to find out what is Microsoft looking after with this acquisition. Search dominance, online advertising market share, or just an increase in long term profits by bringing Yahoo! financial figures in it’s Balance Sheet.
We keep hearing things about Microsoft and Yahoo acquiring various firms related to Search, Advertising and Social Networking fields. Had never gussed that Microsoft will make a bid to get one competitor completely out of the way by acquiring it.